Written May 27, 2011
Updated May 27, 2025
If Van Gogh took psychiatric medication, would Starry Night still exist — or would the world be a little darker? Let’s separate romantic myths from real science and lived experience. Not infrequently, at Bipolar Burble, I get comments about how if famous artists with mental illnesses had been medicated, we wouldn’t have their art today. Psychiatric medication and creativity are simply perennial topics. Their go-to example is always Vincent Van Gogh. Without his untreated mental illness, they argue, Van Gogh wouldn’t have been the great artist we know him to be today. And if that’s true, then others shouldn’t take psychiatric medications either, as they want to be great artists too.
Right then. Let’s all go off our meds and paint. And chop off our ears.
Creativity and Mental Illness
There is no doubt that being crazy makes you see things in a new way. I know I can see things in ways that others can’t. It’s both a swirling benefit of colors and a dramatic, lead hindrance. I’m constantly dealing with people looking at me in odd ways as they try to wrap their heads around whatever-the-heck logic my thoughts are trying to make. It’s no mean feat.
But that’s not necessarily all bipolar. That’s creativity. I was creative before I was crazy, before I was medicated. And I’m creative now, on psych medication.
Why This Myth Persists About Psychiatric Medication
I have had hypomanic times where I have written and written and written and written. Thousands and thousands of words have poured out of my skull. And they have been brilliant.
Or at least, I thought so at the time.
Hypomanic (and manic) people think they are brilliant. Think they are unbelievably talented and creative. Think they are geniuses. It doesn’t mean they actually are. When I have reviewed the writings I have produced when hypomanic, they are the furthest thing from brilliant. They are inches away from nonsensical.
Creativity and Psychiatric Medication
Since being on psych meds, I have written thousands of pages. Thousands. Some professionally, some not, but many fairly laudable and creative. I do have talent, and that talent hasn’t magically been removed because of psychiatric medication.
Of course, if I’m too depressed because of the bipolar to get off the couch, that has a rather adverse effect on producing anything, talented or not.
Artists, Psychiatric Medication, Creativity, and Death
But so you don’t agree with me. You have personally found you’re brilliant off meds and not on. Okay. Fine. And maybe you think you’d be willing to part with your ear to be Van Gogh. Okay. Fine.
But you might want to keep in mind some truly brilliant people who killed themselves due to mental illness, including Van Gogh, whose depression worsened over the course of his lifetime, making him unable to paint, leading to his suicide at the age of 37.
And then there are other famous artists who died from suicide:
- Robin Williams — suicide at 63
- Kate Spade — suicide at 55
- Marilyn Monroe — suicide at 36
- Hunter S. Thompson — suicide at 67
- Sylvia Plath — suicide at 30
- Kurt Cobain — suicide at 27
- Ernest Hemingway — suicide at 62 (and just in case you’re doubting genetics, his father, brother, and sister also died by suicide)
- Diane Arbus — suicide at 48
- Alexander McQueen — suicide at 41
- Virginia Woolf — suicide at 59; here is part of her suicide note to her husband:
I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. . . I don’t think two people could have been happier ’til this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. . . I can’t read.
There are, of course, a whole bunch of other talented people, both known and unknown, who had their lives cut short by suicide as well.
And my guess is that the loved ones of every single one of those people wish that psychiatric treatment had been available for their loved ones. No one wants a painting more than their daughter or son.
Psych Medication Destroys Creativity and Art
So don’t give me the nonsense argument that medications are “bad” because they hamper creativity. Because you know what really kills your creativity?
Death.
I’ll leave you with this snippet of a poem about suicide that really drives home this point:
The Choice
by Lesléa Newman
. . .
Or you can lift the paring knife
from the kitchen drawer
and free the veins
that rise to meet the skin
There is no one
save the poems you might write
Please note that I’m not saying that no one has ever experienced a decrease in art production because of being on psychiatric medication. I’m just saying that’s a poor excuse for not taking medication. It really misses the whole point. Your life is more important than art. Just ask anyone who loves you. (Also, the right medication can absolutely reduce this issue.)
No comments:
Post a Comment